Friday, March 16, 2018

T-Mobile and Crown Castle representatives showed FCC Commissioner
Brendan Carr a thing or two yesterday as they toured selected small cell
sites in Baltimore. Touring sites offering small cell solutions, such
as the street pole lights Carr was introduced to, has been part of an
information gathering effort on the agency’s part prior to voting on
streamlining measures next week.Carr was told although the basic
pole, cabinet, metering, antennas and light infrastructure can cost
around $30,000, that cost can triple when additional asphalt patching,
street shutdowns, sidewalk repair, landscaping and auxiliary building
requirements are added to the mix.

Thursday, March 15, 2018

UPDATE
The Competitive Carriers Association opposes the transfer of
millimeter-wave (“mmW”) spectrum licenses from FiberTower to AT&T
Mobility Spectrum LLC. CCA asked the full Commission to stay the
decision.CCA says the agency approved the
transaction based on incomplete and flawed public interest analysis, and
challenged the Commission to put a hold on its consent order while it
reviews the decision of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau.
“Millimeter wave spectrum offers tremendous opportunities for carriers
as they move toward deploying next generation technologies,” said CCA
President/CEO Steve Berry. “Rather than giving AT&T a head start
advantage with FiberTower’s valuable mmW licenses, while providing
FiberTower an incredible windfall for spectrum that has lied fallow for
years, the Commission should make the terminated licenses available to
any qualified applicant through auction.”

A day after the bureau okayed the
license transfer last month, AT&T closed on its $207 million
acquisition of Fiber Tower, giving it 478 licenses of millimeter wave
spectrum it intends to use to roll out 5G services later this year. Continue Reading

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Wireless industry representatives told
lawmakers Tuesday better maps are needed to determine where broadband
connectivity exists and where it doesn’t, especially now that Congress
is considering effective ways to close the digital divide as part of the
President’s infrastructure plan.

The Chairman of the Senate
Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet, Sen. Roger
Wicker (R-MS), said the current FCC maps showing broadband connectivity
are “utterly worthless.” He asked why the data is “so wrong.” Continue Reading

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Last
year, when Verizon Wireless submitted 12 small cell applications for a
neighborhood near the University of Buffalo, Amherst enacted a
moratorium on the construction of new towers and gathered a committee to
analyze and revise local zoning regulations. Now those
municipality-level regulations may be usurped by state-wide protocol, as
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has introduced a budget proposal to
adopt a uniform, statewide permitting and review process for the
installation of small cell nodes, according to a report from The Buffalo News.

Local governments and interest groups like the Association of Towns and
the New York Conference of Mayors are pushing back, citing state
overreach in decisions traditionally made at the local level. Verizon supports the governor’s
proposal, which the company believes will “promote private investment in
state-of-the-art telecommunications networks at no cost to taxpayers,”
according to David Lamendola, Verizon’s director of state government
affairs for New York. New York would join 13 other states who have
already introduced similar proposals to streamline the installation of
small cell technology, Lamendola told The Buffalo News. In addition to helping Verizon meet customer demand, Lamendola explained that the proposal may also bring new jobs to the state. Continue Reading

Friday, March 9, 2018

Following
the rejection of its special-use and wetlands permits for the
construction of a new tower to bridge a critical coverage gap, Verizon
Wireless has filed suit against the city of Philipstown, NY
in U.S. District Court in White Plains, requesting that the court grant
the denied permits and authorize work to begin on the new tower, as
reported by WestfairOnline.com.

In Verizon Wireless et al v. Town of Philipstown, et al,
the carrier alleges that neither the conservation board nor the zoning
board provided sufficient evidence to warrant the denial of the permits,
in breach of the federal Telecommunications Act. The suit, which names
the zoning board of appeals, the town and conservation boards, and the
town’s building inspector and natural resources review officer, alleges
that the town engaged in discriminatory practices, levied excessive
fees, unreasonably delayed the project, and violated federal and state
laws, according to a report from WestfairOnline.com.

The conflict began in May of 2017,
when Verizon applied for permits for a new 180-foot pole at 50 Vineyard
Road to replace a 120-foot tower nearby; its signal is occluded by the
local topography, according to WestfairOnline.com.
As noted in Verizon’s complaint, Philipstown’s consulting engineer
confirmed that the existing tower could not solve the signal gap, even
if the tower were elevated to 210 feet. Verizon contends in the suit,
that the proposed project met all requirements, but that town officials
“were intent on catering to a small but vocal group of politically
influential objectors” and unreasonably delayed mandated public hearings
and attempted to impose new fees. Continue Reading

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

﻿A
“good half” of the employees at the National Telecommunications and
Information Administration (NTIA) spend all day on spectrum issues,
according to new administrator David Redl. NTIA oversees government
spectrum use. Their time is spent working on finding ways government
spectrum can be used more efficiently — to find spectrum that can be
shared among federal agencies and commercial licensees or given up for
commercial use. That’s a prime administration goal as the wireless
industry works to deploy 5G.

In his hearing debut, Redl explained
to members of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee, the
context of NTIA’s announcement last week, that it has identified 100 MHz
of spectrum (3450 to 3550 MHz)
for potential wireless broadband use. It seeks incentives to government
agencies to persuade them to clear spectrum.

The subcommittee is part of the House
Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees NTIA and the FCC. Chairman
Greg Walden (R-OR), asked Redl why in its FY2019 budget request, NTIA
asked for authority to negotiate leases for private spectrum. Redl, who
worked for the committee for seven years before being named NTIA
Administrator, called leases a tool. “We know clearing is the gold
standard. But there are some bands where clearing won’t be an option,”
because the cost to move incumbents off the band exceeds the potential
revenue of licensing it for a new use. Continue Reading

Monday, March 5, 2018

House Commerce Committee lawmakers in
both the U.S. House and Senate reached an agreement on a measure to
reauthorize the FCC that also provides a way for the agency to hold more
wireless spectrum auctions. The bill (H.R. 4986) also spurs deployment
of next-generation wireless services and enables more station categories
to be reimbursed for moves, as a result of the TV spectrum channel
repack.

House Energy and Commerce Committee
Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR), Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ),
Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Chairman John
Thune (R-SD), and Ranking Member Bill Nelson (D-FL) announced on Friday
that the full House will vote on the bill tomorrow. “This
legislation, combining provisions that have previously passed both the
House and Senate, does what no legislation has done in 28 years – it
reauthorizes the FCC and includes provisions that help make sure that
the Commission is transparent, efficient, and ready for the 21st century
communications landscape,” stated Walden, Pallone, Thune and Nelson.
They pledged to work together to ensure the bill is signed into law.

The RAY BAUM’s Act is named for former
House Energy and Commerce Committee Staff Director Ray Baum, who passed
away from cancer last month. The legislation to be considered Tuesday
would: Continue Reading

Friday, March 2, 2018

The
administration’s plan to direct $200 billion in federal dollars to
infrastructure projects includes broadband as a priority, but earmarks
no money specifically toward expanding wireless or fixed broadband
access. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, spent time discussing the
administration’s reasoning during a sometimes contentious hearing before
the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Thursday.

In afactsheet
released by the White House last Friday, the administration states that
$50 billion is dedicated to rural infrastructure and accounts for 25
percent of federal spending in the plan. “These
funds will be awarded directly to the states, giving them the
flexibility they need to address their individual rural infrastructure
needs,” says the White House. States can spend as much as 100 percent of
the funding they receive on improving rural broadband access.

Chao clarified that state governors
will decide how to allocate the funds. She testified that the
president’s Infrastructure Initiative “includes,
but is not limited to, drinking and wastewater, energy, broadband and
veterans’ hospitals as well. It is designed to change how infrastructure
is designed, built, financed and maintained.” The goal is to stimulate
at least $1.5 trillion in infrastructure investment from the private
sector. Continue Reading

Thursday, March 1, 2018

In
what can certainly be considered a “giant leap for mankind,” Vodafone
Germany, Nokia, and Audi are preparing to install a 4G mobile phone
network on the Moon, 50 years after NASA’s Apollo 11 astronauts first
landed. The equipment will be delivered by a SpaceX Falcon 6 rocket
sometime in 2019, and will allow high-definition streaming back to
Earth, according to Fast Company.

Vodafone Germany Chief Executive
Hannes Ametsreiter praised the collaboration of the companies working on
the project in a press release from the company. “This
project involves a radically innovative approach to the development of
mobile network infrastructure. It is also a great example of an
independent, multi-skilled team achieving an objective of immense
significance through their courage, pioneering spirit and
inventiveness,” Ametsreiter said. Continue Reading

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